The Characteristics of Students in Elementary School

2.5 The Characteristics of Students in Elementary School

Multimedia learning is presented to the fourth grade students of elementary school because in this level, they are considered having such a good attention to learn new materials. The students who have a good attention to learn new materials will learn the language easily, compared with the one who have no good comprehension on it. Slattery and Willis 2001:4 give description about what children are like as learners: ―They are developing quickly as individuals, learn in variety of ways, for example by watching, by listening, by imitating, by doing things, are not able to understand the grammatical rules and explanations about the language, try to make sense of situations by making use of non-verbal clues, talk in their mother tongue about what tehy understand and do – this helps them learn, can generally imitate the sounds they hear quite accurately and copy the way adults speak, are naturally curious, love to play and use their imagination, are comfortable with routines and enjoy repetition, have quite a short attention span and so need variety‖ Scott and Ytreberg 1993:2-4 define some characteristics concerning with the characteristics of young learners: Some characteristics of young learners are they know that the world is governed by rules; they use language skills before they aware of them, they are very logical, have short attention and concentration span, love to play and learn best when they are enjoying themselves, very enthusiastic and positive learning....they ask questions all the time, rely on spoken word as well as physical word to convey and understand meaning, they are able to work with others and learn from others... Young learners are unique; they will do what they like to do. They love playing and learn will be best given when they enjoy themselves. They also have short attention and concentration span. But, as we know that young learners have a big imagination and creativity. Thus, setting an interesting and enjoyable class will keep them get into the class enthusiastically. The other reason why it must be the IV year of elementary school students is they have learnt English before. It‘s expected that they will cope when they face the reading text and push them to be active in making the works. So, based on the reasons above, it could be concluded that having suitable teaching techniques that give memorable experience will help children enjoy their study in or out of the class. One of the method can be used for this purpose is by having multimedia learning. 51 CHAPTER III METHODS OF RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT This chapter deals with the methods of investigation. It consists of the research design, the subject of the study, the instrument of the study, the stage of the study, the method of collecting the data and the procedure in analyzing the data.

3.1. Research Design